Forretress's Fantastic Feats [ADV OU]

[@funkymachine]

He has returned.

[@Kollin7]

ballin

[@tecul1]

it's ballin

[@BluesEnergy00]

Hey, you hit my home screen😮 Way to go

[@dylanf3108]

Zap Cannon is fantastic for the Skarm matchup and punishes the deadly mid game fires in Zard and Moltres. Legitimately love it. My personal favorite is Spin, Spikes, Toxic, Zap Cannon. Toxic is quite good for punishing Pert/Doll/Flygon.

[@user-hb7bo4mr2i]

Zap Cannon can be such a pain to switch into it's insane

[@dylanf3108]

@@user-hb7bo4mr2i It’s why I love it. Make your opponent think twice about going to Zard or Moltres

[@yourdagan]

So I'm speaking as an expert Forretress user, take it or leave it. I don't participate in tournaments but I got #2 on gen3ou ladder with a Forretress team peaking at 1811 ELO. I appreciate you making a video about the mon. As you mentioned, it's sure to be a favorite of high level players because of its unique and compelling place in the metagame. I do agree that it's more for advanced use and not for everyone, because it is very very easy to go wrong with Forretress. So here I'm offering notes on ways to go less wrong with Forretress. First, the teammates. The reason why Tyranitar gets favored over Umbreon, Houndoom, or any other Pursuit user you can think of, is because it too is a role compression mon, on the one hand. On the other hand, it also brings both defensive stamina Houndoom is lacking, which is critical in the Gengar matchup, and offensive presence against anything you prep against with its two free moveslots, which Umbreon simply cannot do. While Forretress is more offensively threatening than it gets credit for, it does fall into the category of relatively-passive, which gets even worse the closer you build the team to stall. If you're going to do Forretress + Umbreon, which is a perfectly valid combination that extends your capabilities to trapping and chipping important Rapid Spin'ers as well as providing the already stated critical Wish support---then you are going to need a powerful offensive threat or two to compensate. Contemporary hard stall is largely unviable as well as being miserable for the user to play, so it is better to always aim for the Semi-Stall range---which means, mostly defensive mons with a couple wallbreakers and/or sweepers. If you were to use this Tyranitar set for example: Crunch Pursuit, SubPunch, you now are not only not walled by Blissey, but you also can check Snorlax, who is a bane against non-Explosion Forretress teams. When considering Houndoom, Umbreon, and so on, you not only have to ask yourself "What does this allow me to check besides spinblockers?", but also "What vulnerabilities does this open up against me?". For a "standard" so to speak Semi-Stall team, there is no consistent value they bring which is superior to Tyranitar's here. Now, saying "Any Wish user" more or less is also misleading. If you use Jirachi, you are now doubly weak to Fire, weak to Earthquake, and have a mon whose only recovery gives the opponent free turns. If you use Umbreon, you have a mon which is chipped by Sandstorm, vulnerable to poison, and has no offensive threat whatsoever (without sacrificing greatly from its bulk). Now, when you use *Blissey*, you have a mon which is functionally immune to status, not beholden to Wish for its recovery, has only one weakness to exploit which in this metagame is easy to predict, and viable against essentially all special attackers. Frankly, it is the superior partner for the purpose at hand. A hidden "issue" with Forretress teams is their rigidity. If you wish to avoid suboptimality or variance, you are quickly forced into definite structures which deviate little if at all from build to build. Already, I've shown how half the team could be considered non-negotiable (for a semi-stall build). A final non-negotiable partner I've concluded from my experience, is not Swampert, but rather Milotic---another mon who, crucially, is self-sufficient with regards to recovery. Although not listed as a "physical wall" in the video---it is a physical wall. Full defense investment is advised. Is it vulnerable to getting flinched out by Rock Slide? Yes. But unlike Swampert: It can heal itself. It stops all Salamences and all Charizards, who would otherwise rip this core apart. It checks Swampert itself, who again threatens this core more than one would initially think. It can be sent out completely freely against virtually anything not carrying Thunderbolt. Milotic simplifies decision-making and safeguards the team to a degree Swampert simply cannot; it is a stallmon par excellence. Once you have the optimal Forretress, Tyranitar, Blissey, Milotic core established, where do you go from there? Almost wherever you want---although I'm not interested in enumerating all possibilities. Instead, I will tell you what worked for me and what exactly led me to the success I achieved. Dugtrio. Adamant. Lead preferably. Eliminate whatever you want, wheneve you need to. Whereas other mons can only provide possibility, Dugtrio makes it a certainty/guarantee, if you understand me. It reduces variance, it optimizes, it grants reliability. Good luck against Celebi, Heracross, and Metagross, to name a few, without it. And the last slot? You'd never have guessed: Kangaskhan. For what is the preceding 5 lacking? Phazing, and insurance against both Baton Pass and Special Offense. Rest (Early Bird), Seismic Toss (no atk investment required), Roar, and... Mud Slap. Why Mud Slap? To ruin passes, ruin Suicune setup, and to increase survivability in 1v1 scenarios requiring frequent Rest-looping. Without Kangaskhan, and with anything else in its slot, consistency against most of the team's biggest threats plummets. And lastly a word on Forretress movesets. "No variety" is basically not true, thankfully. I've seen mindblowing stuff that's even rekt me. Hidden Power Fire is no joke. Toxic + Protect is not a mere lack of imagination. And most importantly, Zap Cannon is no mere bootleg status move. Zap Cannon is your only hope of beating Skarmory (outside of HP Fire and Counter fishing), your only blanket safe-click on an obvious switch out which can cripple both Gengar and Magneton at once, your only means of getting the leg up vs Metagross, and with the right investment (and Spin chip) can even 2 shot Aerodactyl. In short, it's probably the purest cool thing about Forretress in its entirety. I'll end it there.

[@laitentierdotcom]

how do you do it with no rock resist? dug is your only ddtar answer, and since jolly dd outspeeds ada dug at +1 and ohkos, you have to catch it with a double or let it get a KO without going to +1 to trap it. yes, ada dug ohkos and outspeeds neutral jolly ddtar, but it's a 30 % roll on bulky tars, which ada still outspeeds at +1, but is ohko'd back in return if you don't get the roll, and now +1 tar gets to click +1 slide at least once for neutral on everything. even with a spike up, if you catch the tar double, it's still a 68 % roll because they get one turn of lefties chip heal, and it could just be adamant tar and get you with eq which lets something like heracross, lax, or curse pert go crazy. and then there's aero, ddmence, cbmeta, and milo and forre can't sponge it all. i don't think it's a bad team necessarily. obviously, you went crazy with it on ladder and your reasoning on how you ended up with each team member isn't nonsense, but i'm really curious about how you handle the most common mon in the format. do you kinda just surrender to ddtar and load another ladder game hoping not to get rolled by it?

[@yourdagan]

​@@laitentierdotcom Milotic (Surf), Forretress (Earthquake), Kangaskhan (Roar, Mud Slap), Tyranitar (Focus Punch) and Blissey (Thunder Wave) all have ways of dealing with Dragon Dance Tyranitar depending on how the situation is positioned. You can choose to be overly concerned with getting flinched into defeat, but you also have to remind yourself that Swampert isn't perfect either and has serious flaws that can hold a team back in other ways. If this occasional unfortunate way of losing isn't worth the supposed benefits of the team to you, then you'll have to avoid this structure. No, it's not an automatic loss at all. There is no mon on this team a Tyranitar can set up on safely (provided you surmise that it is DD), and few mons that can't finish here what their teammate fails to complete.

[@the_PvP_expert]

Really cool too see more KZbinrs join the adv scene and you're videos are amazing too! Hope to see more

[@Bunkgungle]

Forretress is my favorite boy thank you for this video!

[@Zpanther19]

great video!! for those that wanna try light screen forre its best paired with counter so you arent completely walled by claydol. it helps a ton vs mag ofc allowing you to always live and have way more health to spare.

[@rainbowgg___]

Zap cannon Forre is my favorite spiker now. Feels so good hitting molt, zard , or aero with it

[@ellieofficialvevo]

we played in round 1 of an OU tournament last month and now ur on my homepage that's crazy

[@r.j.tammaro8383]

Forretress has always been THE role compression mon. It was excellent in Ubers for early gens because of that considering you always want to have as many slots for hyper offensive gameplans as possible up there, so having a spiker, rapid spinner, exploder, and (in BW2) Volt Switch for pivot is basically winning the utility lottery

[@dylanf3108]

Yes you always spike. Need to keep pace in the hazard war. Can’t deny spike but you can deny spin. I always spike. It’s a principal I have with the steel spikers to spike in most contexts initially when they come in. I make exception when switching into a boosted mon though. I find this to be the ideal way to use Skarm or Forre.

[@Blazewheat]

Wow I did not know counter hits all hidden powers. That's neat

[@Shin3yBidoof]

You're back, hell yeah

[@effy9526]

Fantastic video, loved how thorough it was! Thanks for making it. Side-note, what's the song that starts at 17:05? It (and all the music in this video) was great.

[@oof_maxima]

Road to Primeval Forest from Pokemon Super Mystery Dungeon

[@maeve7220]

the fortress

[@Regisquatch]

Oof I’m a big fan and have a question. I’m looking to start my own channel and like your style of editing and graphics you use before showing the gameplay. Do you mind if I ask how you do it? I’m brand new to all of this

[@oof_maxima]

I use inkscape to make all the graphics which is free software that's similar to illustrator but easier to use Editing is a real time-consuming pain but making the graphics is easy. Start out with a template that you can use to make all the rest (move boxes, ability boxes, etc) I use filmora to stitch the video together after recording all the sound clips with OBS, it isn't very hard (no crazy animations or anything like that) but gets repetitive after a while

[@oof_maxima]

Should also add that you don't need heavy editing to make quality content, it just makes your videos a bit easier to follow that's all

[@Regisquatch]

@@oof_maxima I really appreciate the response man. And yeah I know that I don’t need top tier editing, I just like the simplicity and narration that videos like yours have and think it could help mine is all

[@chess_fella]

Interesting

[@tecul1]

ayo pursuit aero mention?

[@tecul1]

i love forredol builds but hard to work with

[@iiGiacomo]

What ever happened to the suicune video?

[@oof_maxima]

stopped working on it like 5 months ago unfortunately

[@sea6045]

@@oof_maxima